Land Deals Function as Abusive Tax Shelters, Senate Finance Says

Aug. 25, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

Promoters of tax-advantaged land deals gamed the law to provide billions in inflated deductions to investors, a bipartisan Senate Finance investigation concluded.

The Finance panel, led by Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), spent more than 16 months probing a class of transactions known as syndicated conservation easements.

  • The deals, which the IRS flagged as potentially abusive in 2016, involve promoters who solicit multiple investors to buy interests in a property, which is then donated for conservation purposes, triggering a deduction under tax code Section 170(h).
  • The Finance panel, in a report ...

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